Forum:Archives of the original Panopticon

This area is an archive of old discussions from the Panopticon which are still consiered of use and relevance to the TARDIS Index File wiki project.

Things to Do

(Discussion begun by Josiah Rowe 23:11, 16 Mar 2005 (EST). Archived by Freethinker1of1 18:41, 8 Apr 2005 (EST).)

Hey, Stardizzy and Freethinker! It looks like it's the three of us for the moment. I assume we'd like to get the structure of the site somewhat settled, and have a few important articles as examples before we try to get more people interested and involved (by plugging the site on Outpost Gallifrey's forum, for example). To that end, there are a few things we (as a group) should figure out:

We should figure out what the "encyclopedia"'s point of view should be. As it is now, most of our articles take a "real-world" perspective: that is, they refer explicitly to Doctor Who stories as TV stories or novels. We should consider whether we want to keep that, or if we want articles about things in the "Doctor Who" universe to be treated as if they were written by and for someone in that universe. That is, should an article on the Master talk about Roger Delgado's untimely death in the body of the article, or should production information be separated in italics, the way they do it at Memory Alpha? (I'm not advocating either choice, but we should know what we're doing.)

We should talk about what TARDIS Index File's canon policy is going to be. Doctor Who canon tends to be a bit more flexible than Star Trek's, since the BBC has never set out rules about what "counts" and what doesn't, the way that Paramount has about Star Trek. Therefore, I don't think that we need to be as strict as MA is about what we let in and what we keep out, but we should develop a policy about how we distinguish information from the television series, the novels, the audios, the comics, et cetera.

We should work on the Manual of Style. We've already got conflicting usages on TV story citations in articles: should we refer to The Caves of Androzani or "The Caves of Androzani"? If we set some clear policies now it will save us a lot of time editing later. Similarly, we should figure out some article naming conventions: we've already got List of television stories and List of Audio Stories, which is inconsistent. Since Wiki links are case-sensitive, we should decide whether such articles should have capital letters or not. (Moving a page is easy, but changing everything it links to is a nuisance.)

My project for the next week or so is to learn how to do tables in wiki formatting, so that we can develop a template for the story pages. (See Talk:Suggested Format for Television Story Entries).

Finally, do either of you have any graphics ability? It would be great to have a TARDIS Index File logo to replace the WikiCities one in the upper left-hand corner of each page. Unfortunately, I'm not very graphically talented at all.

I think this project has great potential, and it's fun to be here building the foundation. Let's get to work! :) --Josiah Rowe 23:11, 16 Mar 2005 (EST)

Greetings Josiah and Stardizzy. Hmm, where to begin?

The Memory Alpha method of placing production information in italics might be a good idea, especially as we are including info from or about the '96 tv movie, audio stories, and novels which sometimes conflict with continuity in the original series, which has continuity issues of its own. Right now I'm working on an entry for Nyssa, and have information about her from the series, Virgin/BBC novels, and audio stories listed in their own separate sections. The only mention of Sarah Sutton is that she played the role; I figure further info about Ms. Sutton can be given in the specific article about her. Perhaps I should finish and post the article in that form at the sandbox, and let you guys look it over and decide if that or the Memory Alpha model you mentioned would be better.

Canon policy - Each individual Whovian seems to have his/er own opinion about what is and isn't canon. I personally lean towards being as inclusive as possible, with the individual reader given the choice of what s/he accepts as being canonical. If we adopt the Memory Alpha model of placing production background on a character or planet in italics, perhaps we should also adopt the model of putting info from the series in plain text, and info from the novels, audio stories, and other sources in italics. Whatever we decide, we should of course have a special page stating our canon policy.

Manual of Style - yes, definitely needs work. The conflicting TV story citation usage is my fault for not editing the Wikipedia articles I forked more thoroughly. I personally think individual stories should simply be placed in quotation marks, with italics reserved for Doctor Who, as these are individual works within a vast epic anthology which crosses all media formats, much like individual chapters in a book. Plus, doing wiki markup for italics and links for the same word or set of words is actually something of a nuisance. Naming conventions should probably use capital letters only for proper names and titles, as this would make searching easier. We also need an image use policy page, before we add any more to the site.

Graphics - I do have very limited experience with graphics, mainly with a picture editor (IrfanView) and cooltext.com. Neither, I think allows for saving as or conversion to ".png" format, which is the format used for Wiki logos. I'll check, though, and do some experimenting when I find the time.

Well, that's my input for now. What's yours, Stardizzy? --Freethinker1of1 03:22, 17 Mar 2005 (EST)

I favor separating continuity from production for two reasons. number one, so that readers can easily research only that which interests them, i.e. continuity only or production only. number two, to rein in the writers a little bit and provide some structure.

also I second the idea of italics to separate television from other continuity (or continuities). speaking of production information, I would add a little section to make note of backstory worked out by the production team and in shooting scripts, et cetera, and not nessecarily revealed on-screen, for example Ace's last name or Sarah Jane Smith's birthday, as revealed in the K-9 & COMPANY production guide.

I vote for audio stories not Audio Stories. however specific lines of books or audios with capital letters, like so... Big Finish stories or Missing Adventures. also, I like quote marks around television stories rather than the use of italics.

--Stardizzy 17:53, 17 Mar 2005 (EST)

as I do have some experience for Photoshop I will experiment with making a logo. had no idea we could change it, otherwise I would have suggested doing so.

Hello to all. I hope you don't mind me jumping in to the discussion. I have made just one contribution to this Wiki so far (the List of Audio Stories) but have been keeping an eye on progress. Time allowing, I am very keen to contribute in the future. For what they are worth, here are my thoughts on the issues raised...

I think that this should defintely be a reference for the fictional world of Doctor Who with footnotes in italics regarding real world production details (particularly where they have a visible impact on the fictional world, eg the re-casting of Richard Hurndall as the First Doctor in "The Five Doctors)". This will make it a more useful resource for writers etc.

I was wondering when the issue of canon would come up. The general feeling seems to be that this Wiki should be fairly relaxed about what can be included and I completely agree with this. I was quite disappointed by Memory Alpha's strict policy on not including entries from the Star Trek books etc as I don't see what the benefit is of such a ruling. As has already been said, canon in the Doctor Who world is a much looser thing and is open to personal interpretation. So, I would advocate that just about anything (be it audio, TV, novel or bubblegum card) be allowed and displayed in the same format but with the proviso that all sources of information are clearly sited. For example, an entry for Omega should say what information comes from "The Three Doctors", what comes from "The Arc of Infinity" and what comes from the audio drama "Omega". With this information people can make their minds up themselves what they accept. Having said this, maybe a line does need to be drawn somewhere otherwise you could end up having masses of entries for someone's fan fiction stories featuring the Eleventh Doctor which only two people and a dog have actually read! So, might I suggest that the rule is anything that has been professionally produced or published qualifies for entry.

Related to the previous point regarding canon, can I throw open the question of how broad the reach should be of this Wiki. Obviously it should include anything that's been broadcast or released under the heading of Doctor Who and probably "K9 and Company" as well. But should it also include the Professor Bernice Summerfield adventures and the Faction Paradox stories and other spin-off series - all of which are clearly directly related to Doctor Who? My feeling is that we should.

I don't have any strong opinions on the style for story titles (other than we should be consistent), though I do prefer List of Audio Stories to List of television stories.

I have some basic graphics abilities and have Photoshop. I could probably come up with a logo of some kind if nobody else with more skill and experience steps forward.

Mantrid 01:43, 18 Mar 2005 (EST)

I personally regard only the television stories as canon (won't go into my rationale for that... okay, I will... can't afford to go out and buy every single comic book, audio and book that I missed, nor, in many cases would I want to, never mind spare the time to read and listen to them), still, given this I agree that the more remote spin-offs (Faction Paradox, etc.) belong. I would, if more time and inclinatin, go and add the BBV, the Benny Big Finish and Magic Bullet audios to the audio stories had I the time and inclination.

Stardizzy--Stardizzy 08:26, 18 Mar 2005 (EST)

Mantrid, glad to see you're still with us. Your contributions and input are greatly appreciated. I think you summed up what our canon policy should be rather nicely, - perfectly, in fact.

Guys, one other thing that occured to me. As to conventions, what should our policy on spelling and phraseology be? Using American ones might alienate members from the UK and other countries where the Queen's English is standard, but I doubt few American members would know all the conventions of spelling ("colour" instead of "color") and terminology ("mobile" instead of "cell phone") used in the UK. Perhaps a policy where contributors use whatever conventions they are most familiar and comfortable with, while members from the UK, Australia, etc. reserve the right to edit entries to conform to standards of British English if they choose? I'm sure the English version of Wikipedia has dealt with this issue, and will try to research how they resolved it either on the site or in their forum archives.

Also, to help organize our efforts better, I'm thinking of putting together a "Things to Do" special page, listing the tasks that need to be performed to get this site running smoothly and looking good.

--Freethinker1of1 18:12, 19 Mar 2005 (EST)

Hi, I havent posted any articles on here yet but thought that I would put my suggestions forward first. I tried a project similar to this a while ago called the Braxiatel Collection but I eventually gave up because it prooved difficult to find people willing to help and it was taking me much longer to sort out the page formatting than to write the entries. A group project like this should be much easier.

I believe that the best way to handle a project like this is to approach it from a fictional perspective. I dont know if anyone has read the first Faction Paradox novel Book of the War but I like the approach taken in that book to writing an A-Z. Any real world details needed could be included in a separate section or ideally on a separate page with a link in the main article.

On the issue of Cannon I agree that the best policy is to keep it as wide as possible (but sticking to the officially produced material and not allowing articles to drift to peoples online fan fiction or fanzine material). Personally I think the best approach is to reference television stories in ordinary text and other material in Italics and after any reference to a character, planet etc have the story name referred to after for example... Skaro was eventually destroyed by the Hand of Omega {Remembrance of the Daleks}. However it was later discovered that the planet was not actually destroyed at all {War of the Daleks} Ok so that could be worded better but you get the general idea.

In relation to how far to expand it to spin offs I believe that we should take a quite liberal attitude. I would include the Bernice Summerfield books and audio, Faction Paradox, Time Hunter, Kaldor City etc. However i would exclude the BBV productions which used Doctor Who situations but werent really connected to the show such as the Time Traveller CD's. I have put a proposal for what I consider to be cannon on the Canon policy.

I agree there should be a common format and that it should be decided as soon as possible but I dont really have an opinion either way on how to write the TV story titles, etc

I would agree with Mantrid though I prefer the appearance of the List of Audio Stories to List of television stories.

I have no ability to do graphics at all. I have a really nice logo on my site but that is the only thing which wasnt my own work so...

On the last point relating to terminology I really dont think it is that important an issue, the minor differences between UK and US English for example can just be ignored, personally I dont even notice the differences when I am reading.

Well there are quite a few of my thoughts, I will have to start looking at putting some actual content on here instead of just talking about it

--Amxitsa 16:07, 20 Mar 2005 (EST)

Ok I have been having another rethink, what about the following model used on the Official Star Wars Website. They have split their database entries into 3 sections. The Movies, The Expanded Universe and Behind the Scenes. See this article on Anakin for an example of this.

What if we used a similar system on here. So for example an article on the Master would be as follows:

Main Article - Written from a fictional perspective recording the Masters exploits on TV, in the Novels and Audio CD's, etc.

Dividing Line at bottom of page - Written from a fictional perspective recording the Masters exploits in less cannonicial material, e.g. Scream of Shalka, Comics, etc

A link on the main page to a seperate entry entitled The Master (In Reality) or something like that which would link to a page on casting info and the development of the role.

Following this approach should mean that people can choose for themselves whether they want a purely fictional work, a purely factual work or a combination of the two. Well it is the best compromise i can think of and hopefully it will satisfy everyone

--Amxitsa 05:26, 23 Mar 2005 (EST)

I like the idea of having a main article written from a "Whoniverse" perspective, with a second section or sub-section titled something like "Other stories" which could cover items from the less canonical works. In both cases, parenthetical citation of the specific stories being used as sources, with links, should be used. However, rather than create a separate article entitled "Character (In Reality)," it should be enough to place behind-the-scenes, continuity/discontinuity notes, and other "real world" items in italics, as Memory Alpha does. A table such as the one Josiah Rowe has been working on could be used to list the actor(s) who have played the role, with a link to the article about him/her/them. Here's an example of how Memory Alpha does it.

I think we also need to look more into categorizing articles for easier navigation and disambiguation between subjects which have the same or similar names, i.e. "Castrovalva" the tv story vs. "Castrovalva" the actual city in the tv story. Categories can be created to help separate real world articles, i.e. behind-the-scenes articles, articles on individual stories, and bios on actors, writers, and production crewmembers, from those dealing with characters, alien races, planets, and so on. Wikipedia has a page which discusses the creation and use of categories to aid visitors in navigating the site and in disambiguation. It can be found here.--Freethinker1of1 07:27, 23 Mar 2005 (EST)

Right. We seem to have a consensus on putting main article text in a Doctor Who universe POV when possible: this means that articles such as The Doctor need to be rewritten from their Wikipedia roots. (E.g., the first sentence of The Doctor has to go, and the information about the actors who played him needs to be put in italics, et cetera.)

I applaud Amxitsa and others for making such a good start on the canon discussion at Tardis talk:Canon policy. We should try to keep the canon discussions focused there, rather than spread out on this page. Similarly, I'll try to summarize what we've said so far about questions of style at Tardis talk:Manual of Style. (It's my own fault for starting the "Things to Do" section so haphazardly: it'd be clearer if I'd made separate sections for each topic!)

Also, I'd appreciate any feedback on the table I've developed at Talk:Suggested Format for Television Story Entries. And I'm sorry it took so long for me to get back here — last week was crazy IRL. --Josiah Rowe 01:16, 26 Mar 2005 (EST)